Best making the best of a bad image: 

Las Vegas' "What Happens Here,

Stays Here" campaign
After a failed attempt to promote itself as a family destination, Las Vegas
finally embraced its Sin City image with its "What happens here, stays
here" advertising campaign, launched in 2003. It's still going strong: 2007
marked the city's fourth consecutive year of busting tourism records. "It
resonated because it's what people already believe," says Laura Ries,
president of marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries.
Lesson: Try to turn negatives into positives.
• Best product placement: Reese's Pieces in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Some marketing missteps make you kick yourself. Take Mars Inc.'s failure
to take the opportunity to include M&Ms in E.T. After Mars passed,
director Steven Spielberg went to Hershey's, which took the offer. It paid
off. Time magazine reported in 1982 that Reese's Pieces sales rose 65
percent in the months after the movie's release. Even though the movie
never mentioned the name of the product, showing the distinctive orange
package was enough, and the placement enjoyed heavy promotional
support from the manufacturer.
Lesson: Placing your product in the right media vehicle can boost sales.
• Best video ad: Get a Mac
Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, which launched in 2006, puts the hip,
easygoing Mac against the hapless, problem-prone PC. "The message of
these ads is clear," says communications professor Stephen Marshall,
author of Television Advertising That Works. "Every one of them says,
'Don't be this guy.' You don't want to be the PC." The TV ads also
appeared online, and the company released a series of web-only ads to
capitalize on consumer interest in the characters. People got the
message--Mac's market share grew by 42 percent.
Lesson: Create engaging characters in your online video to help grow an
audience that's receptive to your brand.
Best contest: Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest
Launched in 1916, this homage to gluttony plasters the Nathan's name
across international media each year. Brothers George and Richard Shea
launched the International Federation of Competitive Eating in 1997. The
IFOCE organizes and runs more than 80 eating contests throughout the
U.S. and abroad, spurring a subculture of competitive eating celebrities
who receive international media attention.
Lesson: Don't be afraid to be outrageous if it suits your brand.
• Best use of YouTube: Blendtec's "Will It Blend?"
Blendtec, a maker of high-end blenders, created a series of online videos
that depict founder Tom Dickson using his durable machine to smash
everything from small electronics to sneakers to credit cards. The videos
are on Blendtec's site as well as YouTube, where, through viral marketing,
some have been viewed more than 5.5 million times. It shows people are
interested--and it saves money, since Blendtec didn't pay for all that
band-width. Says Ann Handley, chief content officer of marketing
information resource MarketingProfs.com, "They created a campaign that
really builds brand awareness."
Lesson: Use various tools to spread the word about how your brand is
different.
• Best slogan: "got Milk?"
What better success benchmark than having your slogan work its way into
the national lexicon? It's even better when it includes your product name,
says Mitzi Crall, author of 100 Smartest Marketing Ideas Ever. The
simplicity of the slogan lends itself to a wide variety of advertising
interpretations, ranging from humorous
• TV ads to the celebrity-driven milk mustache print series. "The images of
glamour and fame contrasted with the hominess of a milk mustache make
the versatile tagline a hit," says Crall. A year after the campaign launched
in California, the state saw an increase in milk sales for the first time in
more than 10 years.
Lesson: Look for slogans that have the potential for longevity.
• Best jingle: NBC jingle
If you can name that brand in three notes, it must be the NBC
jingle. Of course, repetition over the years has reinforced the
brand, but there's more to it. "It's called mnemonics, or sonic
branding," says Marshall. "By adding sound to its brand
identity, it adds another way for customers to experience the
brand. It especially makes sense because it's a broadcast
medium."
Lesson: Look for ways to add additional sensory branding
elements when relevant.
• Best use of truth in a crisis:Tylenol
When cyanide-laced capsules of Extra Strength Tylenol were linked to
seven deaths in the Chicago area in 1982, parent company Johnson &
Johnson faced a full-blown crisis. While other companies might have lied
or evaded the situation, then-CEO James E. Burke issued a full recall of the
product and engaged in regular media updates that were shockingly
honest for the time. All consumers with bottles of Tylenol capsules could
swap them for Tylenol tablets at Johnson & Johnson's cost. "Telling the
truth is always a good long-term strategy," says Scott Armstrong, a
marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of
Business. "When that's violated, it leads to a fall."
Lesson: Be truthful with your customers and you'll keep their trust.
• Best use of social networking to target tweens and teens: High School
Musical
After the success of the made-for-TV movies High School Musical and High
School Musical 2, Disney teamed up with MySpace in what TV Guide
called the social network's largest campaign. The promotion included a
contest where fans showed school spirit by completing tasks such as
uploading videos, changing profile skins and texting votes for their school.
Lesson: Find the media your audience uses and go there.
• Best celebrity spokesman:William Shatner as The Priceline Negotiator
When William Shatner first started touting Priceline.com's cut-rate service
in 1997, no one thought the relationship--or the company, for that
matter--would last more than a decade. But through a savvy reinvention
of itself, Priceline thrived with the campy James Bond-gone-wrong
Shatner as its public persona. That long-term element is part of the
relationship's success, says Ries. "You get the feeling that he's very much
in tune with the brand and the company. That kind of longevity and
dedication can be [very] effective."
Lesson: A little fun can go a long way.
• Best logo: Nike Swoosh
There are a number of rumors about exactly how much Nike paid Portland
State University graphic design student Carolyn Davidson for the Swoosh
in the early '70s (actually $35), but it's been the brand's mark since it was
introduced on Nike footwear at the 1972 U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials.
The reason it works? It's an "empty vessel," says Ries. "It's so simple and
visible at a distance. Another logo might have been well-known but
wouldn't have done the brand as much good if it had been more
complicated." Because the Swoosh has no innate meaning attached to it,
Nike can use it to build any image it desires.
Lesson: Sometimes too many bells and whistles can make your logo less
effective.
• Best use of outdoor advertising: The Goodyear Blimp
Is there anyone who doesn't recognize the blimp when it passes by? "The
Goodyear Blimp is its own kind of magic," says Crall. "If we see it float by
when we're going about our daily lives, we run to get our spouses and
children to 'come see.' We're receptive to the brand message."
Lesson: Be unexpected in how and where you communicate with your
customers.
• Best use of promotional items: Livestrong wristbands
After the news broke in 1996 that champion bicyclist Lance Armstrong
had cancer, he founded his Lance Armstrong Foundation the following
year. Working with Nike, the foundation developed a yellow silicon
wristband stamped with the Livestrong mantra to sell as a fundraiser.
According to lancewins.com, more than 45 million have been sold so far.
The bracelets became an immediately identifiable symbol of Armstrong,
who often wore the yellow leaders jersey while cycling to seven Tour de
France victories.
Lesson: Have a signature look, whether it's a giveaway or simply in how
you present your brand, so people recognize you immediately.
• 5 worst marketing ideas . . . ever
• While some campaigns are notable for their brilliance, others, well, not so
much. Here are five marketing efforts we could have done without.
• Worst campaign to trigger a bomb scare: Aqua Teen Hunger Force In
January 2007, Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s promotion of its TV show
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which featured small electronic light boards
with one of the series' characters, triggered a bomb scare in Boston.
• Worst use of body parts in marketing: Logo tattoos In the 1990s, California
eatery Casa Sanchez offered free lunch for life to anyone who got a tattoo
of their logo. Nervous about how quickly people were getting inked, the
eatery limited the offer to the first 50 people.
• Worst sponsorship idea: Bidding for baby naming rights The dotcom era
ushered in a (thankfully small) rash of people trying to sell off their
children's names for extra dough. Poor little Widget Smith.
• Worst campaign character: The Quiznos creatures Superimposed over a
Quiznos sub shop were two disturbing, singing rat-like creatures.
Fortunately, the shop got wise and ditched them after public outcry. But
it's an image that stays with you. Go ahead, look them up on YouTube--
but don't say we didn't warn you.
• Worst plague-like sweep of viral marketing: Starbucks' viral marketing
fiasco A free-coffee coupon sent by baristas with no restrictions circulated
the internet, causing an overwhelming rate of renewal. Ultimately the
coffee purveyor stopped honoring the coupon, causing a mini
controversy.
 INNOVATIONS IN THE PAST 20
YEARS
• 1990: The proliferation of the branded rewards credit card begins as AT&T
introduces its AT&T Universal Card 
• 1991: The first example of large-scale, Word of Mouth rewards marketing
occurs with MCI’s Friends & Family Program, which encourages customers
to recruit new members in return for awards
• 1992: The rise of two-tier pricing – a watershed moment for grocers–
takes place when Vons supermarkets offer in-store savings to club card
members
• 1994: Airline miles become profit centers as carriers discover their
program miles can be used as promotional currency by hotels,
restaurants, credit card and car rental companies
• 1997: The gaming industry fully embraces loyalty marketing as Harrah’s
Total Gold debuts
• 2001: America’s first coalition program to gain national attention arrives
through Upromise, which partners with corporate giants to help students
plan, save and pay for college
• 2005: Big U.S. banks begin to embrace debit loyalty with Bank of
America’s Keep the Change, a program that rounds up members’ debit
purchases to the next dollar and deposits the difference.
• 2006: Word of Mouth is harnessed by loyalty marketers in order to
transform consumers into brand ambassadors after the broad acceptance
of social platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and
• 2009: Smartphones promise loyalty marketers new ways to engage with
on-the-go consumers and enable real-time options for mobile rewards,
payments and commerce.
In the late 1930s, Henry Blackman Sell (1889-1974) – a Chicago-based glove
salesman, president of his own marketing agency, CEO of a food processing
company, inventor of Sell’s Liver Pate, and at various times editor of Harper’s
Bazaar and Town and Country – commercialized marketing of vitamins on a
massive scale with the slogan, “Have you been taking your vitamins lately?” His
name “Sell” matched his marketing genius perfectly. 
Have you taken your vitamins lately?

No? Don't be a Johnny-come-lately.

Seize the bottle by the cap.

Unscrew it like a good chap.

The vitamin maker will appreciate it greatly.